Developing engineering students’ generic and professional skills through a consultative approach to project-based learning

Abstract

To respond to construction industry-specific requirements for civil engineers, university teachers need to provide opportunities for students to develop their generic and professional skills. This article describes the use of a novel intervention of project-based learning–PjBL with the consultative approach–to teach Lean Construction and the influence of this method on the development of students’ generic and professional skills. In this Lean course, teams of students carried out projects, in a consultative manner, to manage the real-life challenges that local companies were facing. Data on students’ perceptions were collected through reflection documents written by students. Findings indicated that introducing students to an intervention of PjBL did expose students, especially, to learning to express themselves verbally and in writing, working as a team and focusing on the current problem. Particularly, project work, team work, meetings, and seminars were perceived as effective methods for advancing these skills.